'No. It's a beautiful sunshiny day; without much wind either, in spite of
all this row.'
'I suppose you have had your breakfast long ago?'
'So long since that I am beginning to look forward with pleasant
anticipation to lunch.'
'Oh dear! I had no idea I was so late as that. Perhaps _you_ had
better scold me. Somebody ought to do it, and the steward seems a
little afraid.'
'You over-estimate my courage. I am a little afraid, too.'
'Then you _do_ think I deserve it?'
'I didn't say that, nor do I think it. I confess, however, that up to
this moment I felt just a trifle lonely.'
'Just a trifle! Well, that _is_ flattery. How nicely you English do turn
a compliment! Just a trifle!'
'I believe, as a race, we do not venture much into compliment making at
all. We leave that for the polite foreigner. He would say what I tried
to say a great deal better than I did, of course, but he would not mean
half so much.'
'Oh, that's very nice, Mr. Wentworth. No foreigner could have put it
nearly so well. Now, what about going on deck?'
'Anywhere, if you let me accompany you.'
'I shall be most delighted to have you. I won't say merely a trifle
delighted.'
'Ah! Haven't you forgiven that remark yet?'
'There's nothing to forgive, and it is quite too delicious to forget. I
shall never forget it.'
'I believe that you are very cruel at heart, Miss Brewster.'
The young woman gave him a curious side-look, but did not answer. She
gathered the wraps she had taken from her cabin, and, handing them to him
before he had thought of offering to take them, she led the way to the
deck. He found their chairs side by side, and admired the intelligence of
the deck-steward, who seemed to understand which chairs to place
together. Miss Jennie sank gracefully into her own, and allowed him to
adjust the wraps around her.
'There,' she said, 'that's very nicely done; as well as the deck-steward
himself could do it, and I am sure it is impossible to pay you a more
graceful compliment than that. So few men know how to arrange one
comfortably in a steamer chair.'
'You speak as though you had vast experience in steamer life, and yet you
told me this was your first voyage.'
'It is. But it doesn't take a woman more than a day to see that the
average man attends to such little niceties very clumsily. Now just tuck
in the corner out of sight. There! Thank you, ever so much. And would you
be kind enough to--Yes, that's better. And this other wrap so. Oh, that
is perfect. What a patient man you are, Mr. Wentworth!'
'Yes, Miss Brewster. You _are_ a foreigner. I can see that now. Your
professed compliment was hollow. You said I did it perfectly, and then
immediately directed me how to do it.'
'Nothing of the kind. You did it well, and I think you ought not to
grudge me the pleasure of adding my own little improvements.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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